This invention is directed to apparatus for the fabrication of a unitary dispensing container.
Packaging systems that blow mold, fill and seal containers such as bottles, bags and the like, enjoy widespread commercial acceptance because of ease of operation and reduced labor cost. Moreover, such a packaging system obviates the need for costly auxiliary equipment that cleans and handles empty containers, fills the containers, and subsequently seals the filled containers. A packaging system of the foregoing type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 27,155 to Hansen.
Since the complete filling cycle for a container takes place in an enclosed environment when the aforementioned form, fill and seal packaging system is employed, this system is well suited for sterile and aseptic packaging of parenteral solutions and the like substances. However, for such solutions it is desirable to provide a container having a pierceable closure portion of controlled dimensions that can be readily penetrated by and receive a cannula without undesirable coring and leaking when it is desired to drain the container contents.
Typical prior art containers for this purpose have a base portion for supporting the container on a flat surface and a pierceable cannula-receiving closure portion, displaced from, and usually opposite, the base portion. Typically, the cannula-receiving portion includes a generally flat, pierceable region which is unitary with the container itself and which serves to close the container after the container has been filled with a desired contents.
With prior art containers of the type described above, a mold parting line occasioned by the mold parts needed to shape the container, traverses the top pierceable region. The parting line is usually manifested by an outwardly projecting bridge of molded material which is formed by the partial flow of the molded material between the mold parts as the container is fabricated.
However, this ridge interferes with the penetration of the pierceable region by the cannula when a container is pierced, and in some containers the parting line is the pierceable region has been offset by appropriate contouring of the molds for fabricating the container.
It would be desirable to provide apparatus for making a small container having an offset parting line in the pierceable region thereof using efficient split mold techniques.